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Tomatenrot
Sammy Barlach ist ein Verlierer, der sich mehr schlecht als recht durchs Leben schlägt. Eigentlich will er nur irgendwo dazugehören – und stolpert so zielsicher ins Verderben. Bei einem Einbruch in eine Villa trifft er auf zwei andere, ebenso planlose Wohlstandsplünderer: die neunzehnjährige Jamalee mit ihren kurzen, tomatenroten Haaren und ihren bildschönen jüngeren Bruder Jason. Endlich hat Sammy, was er immer gesucht hat: Familienanschluss – und ein bisschen mehr. Mit der Mutter der beiden, Bev, die sich ihren Unterhalt als Escortdame und gelegentlich als Polizeispitzel verdient, beginnt er eine Affäre, aber auch von Jamalee kann er die Augen nicht lassen. Doch die hat andere Pläne und will hoch hinaus, zumindest raus aus dem Sumpf von Venus Holler. Aus der Tatsache, dass die Hälfte aller Frauen der Stadt hinter Jason her ist, will sie Profit schlagen. Doch dann wird eines Morgens Jasons Leiche gefunden, und erst jetzt offenbart sich, wie tief dieser Sumpf wirklich ist.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
72 people are currently reading
3065 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Woodrell
26 books1,338 followersGrowing up in Missouri, seventy miles downriver from Hannibal, Mark Twain was handed to me early on, first or second grade, and captivated me for years, and forever, I reckon. Robert Louis Stevenson had his seasons with me just before my teens and I love him yet. There are too many others to mention, I suppose, but feel compelled to bring up Hemingway, James Agee, Flannery O'Connor, John McGahern, Knut Hamsun, Faulkner, George Mackay Brown, Tillie Olsen, W.S. Merwin, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Andrew Hudgins, Seamus Heaney, Derek Wolco.
Daniel Woodrell was born and now lives in the Missouri Ozarks. He left school and enlisted in the Marines the week he turned seventeen, received his bachelor's degree at age twenty-seven, graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and spent a year on a Michener Fellowship. His five most recent novels were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and Tomato Red won the PEN West award for the novel in 1999. Winter's Bone is his eighth novel.
Daniel Woodrell was born and now lives in the Missouri Ozarks. He left school and enlisted in the Marines the week he turned seventeen, received his bachelor's degree at age twenty-seven, graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and spent a year on a Michener Fellowship. His five most recent novels were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and Tomato Red won the PEN West award for the novel in 1999. Winter's Bone is his eighth novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 386 reviews
September 3, 2018
tomato red is an earlier book by daniel woodrell, and occasionally this becomes apparent. there are moments where it gets a little overwritten even for me, the lover of melodrama and the densely-packed sentence.
is it as good as winter's bone??
no.
but it's like saying "is megan fox as hot as angelina jolie, or is she some kind of cheaper, off-brand, less genuinely badass version??" does it matter?? is anyone kicking either of these ladies out of bed?? nope.
woodrell is never gonna get kicked out of my bookshelf. i want to read him sparingly, because his books tend to be short and there aren't that many of them, but i now know that when i read one, i am guaranteed to enjoy it.
this one is much more of an appalachia noir than winter's bone, but it still employs the same themes of frustration and impotence and futility in that "this is where you were born and this is what you get" kind of steinbeckian inevitability that i have always been drawn to. cleverness won't get you out, beauty won't get you out, sexual proficiency won't get you out, and there's no such thing as justice, even of the poetic kind. and that is as bleak as it sounds, but the struggle is a beautiful thing.
you can't help but love the narrator; the most hapless character to ever attempt a life of crime. for a girl. a series of girls. and the rest of it? it's funny and sad and beautiful. woodrell has a real knack for bringing the reader to the brink of hope and then kicking the characters' legs out from under them. for a short book, there are a lot of emotional turns.
i push woodrell on you. i don't think he can be resisted.
come to my blog!
is it as good as winter's bone??
no.
but it's like saying "is megan fox as hot as angelina jolie, or is she some kind of cheaper, off-brand, less genuinely badass version??" does it matter?? is anyone kicking either of these ladies out of bed?? nope.
woodrell is never gonna get kicked out of my bookshelf. i want to read him sparingly, because his books tend to be short and there aren't that many of them, but i now know that when i read one, i am guaranteed to enjoy it.
this one is much more of an appalachia noir than winter's bone, but it still employs the same themes of frustration and impotence and futility in that "this is where you were born and this is what you get" kind of steinbeckian inevitability that i have always been drawn to. cleverness won't get you out, beauty won't get you out, sexual proficiency won't get you out, and there's no such thing as justice, even of the poetic kind. and that is as bleak as it sounds, but the struggle is a beautiful thing.
you can't help but love the narrator; the most hapless character to ever attempt a life of crime. for a girl. a series of girls. and the rest of it? it's funny and sad and beautiful. woodrell has a real knack for bringing the reader to the brink of hope and then kicking the characters' legs out from under them. for a short book, there are a lot of emotional turns.
i push woodrell on you. i don't think he can be resisted.
come to my blog!
October 13, 2018
Tomato Red has one of the best--and one of the longest--opening lines you'll ever read, and it sets the stage for a very good book that might best be categorized as Hillbilly Noir.
Sammy Barlach, the narrator and main protagonist, is new to West Table, Missouri, and to his job at the dog food factory. Seeking company on a Friday night after work, he falls in with a "coed circle of bums" who are well supplied with tequila and crank. You know that from this point on interesting things are going to happen and that most of them won't be good. By the end of the evening Sammy finds himself in league with two ambitious kids, Jamalee Merridew, whose tomato red hair provides the book' title, and her beautiful brother Jason.
Jamalee and Jason like to break into the homes of wealthy people, dress up in their clothes and imagine what it would be like to be rich. Jamalee has definite ambitions of becoming rich and concocts a plan wherein her brother will seduce local wealthy women and the pair will then blackmail them by threatening to expose their transgressions. The only problem with the plan is that Jason's sexual impulses run in a slightly different direction.
The book's plot is a bit on the thin side, but Woodrell has captured beautifully the patterns of speech and the rhythms of life among the Ozarks less privileged residents. Another terriffic character is Jamalee and Jason's mother, a local prostitute with whom Sammy also becomes entangled. The story is alternately funny and heart-breaking and you can't help but root for these mostly lost souls, even though you know that at the end of a book like this things are probably not going to turn out well for anyone.
Sammy Barlach, the narrator and main protagonist, is new to West Table, Missouri, and to his job at the dog food factory. Seeking company on a Friday night after work, he falls in with a "coed circle of bums" who are well supplied with tequila and crank. You know that from this point on interesting things are going to happen and that most of them won't be good. By the end of the evening Sammy finds himself in league with two ambitious kids, Jamalee Merridew, whose tomato red hair provides the book' title, and her beautiful brother Jason.
Jamalee and Jason like to break into the homes of wealthy people, dress up in their clothes and imagine what it would be like to be rich. Jamalee has definite ambitions of becoming rich and concocts a plan wherein her brother will seduce local wealthy women and the pair will then blackmail them by threatening to expose their transgressions. The only problem with the plan is that Jason's sexual impulses run in a slightly different direction.
The book's plot is a bit on the thin side, but Woodrell has captured beautifully the patterns of speech and the rhythms of life among the Ozarks less privileged residents. Another terriffic character is Jamalee and Jason's mother, a local prostitute with whom Sammy also becomes entangled. The story is alternately funny and heart-breaking and you can't help but root for these mostly lost souls, even though you know that at the end of a book like this things are probably not going to turn out well for anyone.
April 27, 2023
“I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.”Daniel Woodrell's Tomato Red is lighthearted and wickedly funny - until it abruptly isn't, and you are in vain trying to recover from the unexpected whiplash from the change in direction and tone, and trying to figure out when exactly this black comedy became tragedy - and has it been tragedy all along but you just haven't noticed in time??? - and rereading the last few pages trying to figure out when and how exactly it changed course to bleak desperation, and all of this is causing you a headache like you haven't had in ages, and a bit of the hollow feeling somewhere deep in the belly.
At least that's my experience with Tomato Red - a book I was considering setting aside somewhere in the first third of it or so, having never been a particular fan of this particular brand of hopeless bleak humor. But something in it made me keep going, and I have no regrets.
The only Woodrell I've read until now was Winter's Bone, the bleak and chilling story of Ozarks where meth is the king and overwhelming poverty is reality. Well, the setting here is similar in feel and tone, and pervasive hopelessness is another common thread. But in Winter's Bone we had a real protagonist - tough-as-nails Ree Dolly who was a ray of hope in the oppressive bleakness. Tomato Red instead gives up Sammy Barlach, a pathetic young kid "who should in any circumstances be considered a suspect", with drug addiction, no prospects, and the overwhelming desire to belong, to be accepted, to be loved.
Sammy does find a ragtag bunch from the wrong side of the tracks that seems to accept him with no questions asked - by their own sad admission, maybe not even the lowest scum in town: an aging prostitute Bev Merrihew and her children Jason (a strikingly beautiful young boy struggling with his homosexuality) and Jamalee, a girl with tomato-red hair, a girl whose greatest ambition is to get out of the squalor of her hometown.
"This expression of utter frankness takes over Jason's beautiful face, and he says, 'I don't think we're the lowest scum in town.'It's Jamalee, a little flame with her tomato-red hair - or maybe hair the color of blood? - who is not content with being the (almost) lowest scum in town. And it's Jamalee who (as you can expect from the beginning of this book) ends up being a hurricane that wrecks up the status quo - but, like a hurricane, leaves destruction and a world of hurt in her path. And it's Jamalee who's too easy to blame for the stupid, pointless tragedy that happens in this book - until you stop to think of the real cause of everything, the crushing oppressive poverty aided by addiction and small-town isolated-community mentality.
He didn't argue that we weren't scum, just disputed our position on the depth chart."
And, just like in The Winter's Bone, the real character of this story is the setting itself, the Ozarks, the place that to my privileged middle-class educated self seems almost unreal and yet is the reality for so many people, the place that is not afraid to bite if you happen to cross it and it's code of conduct. And that is the most sobering thing in this book for me, really.
Perhaps it's exactly the juxtaposition of humorous witty voice of Sammy-the-village-idiot and the crushingly cruel hopelessness of reality that make this book what it is and make my brain spin over it. I'm not sure, but I know I'm not likely to forget this story any time soon. 4 stars and a lasting shaken-up feeling.
December 9, 2021
The poor side of town, the wrong side of the tracks. This is Venus Holler, jam-ass packed with ramshackle slanty houses just begging to be demolished. Crummy bars full of ex-cons, losers, all around ne'er-do-wells. Plenty of meth and other drugs to go around. Women with whiskers and tattoos. It's a rough bunch.
And then there's Jamalee Merridew, with her poof-ball of bright red hair. She may have had the misfortune of being born in the Holler and of a mama with questionable morals, but she has visions of a better life. She intends to get out of Venus Holler and the sooner the better. In her corner is brother, Jason, and her new friend, Sammy. Jason has the good looks, Sammy provides the muscle, and Jamalee the plans of action, flawed though they may be.
And then there's Jamalee Merridew, with her poof-ball of bright red hair. She may have had the misfortune of being born in the Holler and of a mama with questionable morals, but she has visions of a better life. She intends to get out of Venus Holler and the sooner the better. In her corner is brother, Jason, and her new friend, Sammy. Jason has the good looks, Sammy provides the muscle, and Jamalee the plans of action, flawed though they may be.
April 18, 2025
She Was Born Into It: On Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell
Daniel Woodrell writes about poor folks. The kind born under gray skies, where dogs bark all night and nothing good ever comes easy. He writes them plain. He writes them true. They live in shacks with rotted steps and oil stains in the dirt. Folks call them white trash, rednecks, hill people. But Woodrell doesn’t laugh at them. He knows them. And he doesn’t flinch.
Tomato Red is about a girl with hair the color of blood on a ripe summer fruit. She wants out. Wants better. But wantin’ don’t mean gettin’. The world she lives in is hard and tight and mean, like a dry well or a coiled snake. And yet she’s got pride. She’s got a little fire left. Not much, but enough.
The story takes place in a place called Venus Holler, which is a joke. Ain’t no goddesses there. Just old ghosts, dope deals, and women worn out too young. Woodrell says it like this:
That’s the kind of truth that stings like whiskey on a cut. And Woodrell doesn’t dress it up. He gives it to you raw. Like a punch or a prayer, depending on the line.
There’s a rhythm to his words, but it’s not music. It’s more like a screen door banging in the wind or the crunch of gravel under boots. He’s got humor too, but it’s dry and mean and it lives right next to sorrow. The kind of laugh you give when you know nothing’s going to change.
This ain’t a feel-good story. But it’s a good story. And that’s better.
Read it if you want to know how people live when they’ve been forgotten. Read it if you can handle the truth told straight, no sugar. This is the Ozarks TV series without the postcard scenery. Just the dirt, the rust, the folks, and the dream that maybe, just maybe, there’s more out there—even if you never reach it.
Daniel Woodrell writes about poor folks. The kind born under gray skies, where dogs bark all night and nothing good ever comes easy. He writes them plain. He writes them true. They live in shacks with rotted steps and oil stains in the dirt. Folks call them white trash, rednecks, hill people. But Woodrell doesn’t laugh at them. He knows them. And he doesn’t flinch.
Tomato Red is about a girl with hair the color of blood on a ripe summer fruit. She wants out. Wants better. But wantin’ don’t mean gettin’. The world she lives in is hard and tight and mean, like a dry well or a coiled snake. And yet she’s got pride. She’s got a little fire left. Not much, but enough.
The story takes place in a place called Venus Holler, which is a joke. Ain’t no goddesses there. Just old ghosts, dope deals, and women worn out too young. Woodrell says it like this:
“Venus Holler was the most low-life part of town… Venus Holler as a name was one of those cruel country jokes that sticks… Back in the heydays this was where the whores all had to live… The name got to be Venus Holler, I’m told, precisely because a goddess is the very last dame you’d ever expect to find there—but if ever you did, for three bucks you could [screw] her too.”
That’s the kind of truth that stings like whiskey on a cut. And Woodrell doesn’t dress it up. He gives it to you raw. Like a punch or a prayer, depending on the line.
There’s a rhythm to his words, but it’s not music. It’s more like a screen door banging in the wind or the crunch of gravel under boots. He’s got humor too, but it’s dry and mean and it lives right next to sorrow. The kind of laugh you give when you know nothing’s going to change.
This ain’t a feel-good story. But it’s a good story. And that’s better.
Read it if you want to know how people live when they’ve been forgotten. Read it if you can handle the truth told straight, no sugar. This is the Ozarks TV series without the postcard scenery. Just the dirt, the rust, the folks, and the dream that maybe, just maybe, there’s more out there—even if you never reach it.
November 2, 2012
Tomato Red: Daniel Woodrell's Tale of Leaving Home
Welcome to West Table, Missouri. Meet Sammy Barlach who's just hired on down at the dog food factory. It's Friday night. The Tequila and Meth have got Sammy flying, impressing new friends down at the bar. Wanting to fit in with the new gang, when one suggests Sammy burgle one of the town mansions, Sammy's up for it. But he hears the laughter of his new buddies and the roar of their pickup recede in the distance when they drop him off at his next crime scene.
Sammy manages to get inside and stay awake just long enough to recognize that the rich live a Helluva lot better than he does. But the problem with Meth is that although it will keep you going for days, ultimately you crash and Sammy crashes in someone else's house. Not a good thing--his rap sheet shows he's in for some long time away at the State pen if he's caught.
Meet Jamalee and Jason Merridew, brother and sister, pranksters, both of them. It isn't their house either. Jamalee and Jason learn how the other half lives by breaking into the homes of the wealthy and studying their possessions.
Jamalee wants out of West Table bad. There's a better place outside West Table, outside the Ozarks. Jason is her ticket out of town. He's already a hair dresser in training down at Ramalee's Beauty Salon. He gave her that unique tomato red hair of hers, thank you very much. He's about the most gorgeous piece of man flesh in the county. All the ladies line up for Jason to shampoo their hair and purr with a contented smile on their faces while Jason's fingers massage their scalps.
The way Jamalee sees things, all she needs to do is get Jason out of town, set him up in business, the hair dressing business and the gigoloin' business and life will be easy street. The only problem is Jason is gay and isn't too keen on being a gigolo. Jamalee knows it's not easy being gay in West Table. That's the reason Sammy might be the right man to provide security for them.
When you get right down to the bottom of things though, at least around West Table, you are who you are based on where you're from. When you're the children of Bev Merridew the local prostitute a fellow can always count on when he's pinched in the crotch, and you live over in Venus Holler, the other half doesn't think you're much of anything.
Well, Sammy has no family he'll speak of, and he decides to join the Merridews. Goodhearted Bev provides beer and sympathy when she's not on business which is just fine with Sammy.
Jamalee, furthering her education, looks to take a job down at the Country Club as a server. Sammy and Jason accompany her to the club. There's not a chance in Hell Jamalee is going to get that job. She's Venus Holler trash. In revenge, Jamalee, Jason, and Sammy drive hogs over the Club's golf course during the night, ruining every hole. It's all whoopin' and hollerin' until the other half teach the folks at Venus Holler a lesson.
One of the Merridews will die. Blood money will be paid. Those who live must decide the value of a human life. And Sammy Barlach will show you just how dangerous he can be.
This is my third Woodrell read. Each has been a unique experience with narrators distinct and different in voice. There is humor here, at first light, but turning from comedy to tragedy. While Thomas Wolfe told us you can't go home again, Daniel Woodrell let's us know that sometimes it's impossible to leave it without a price too high to pay.
Highly recommended.
Welcome to West Table, Missouri. Meet Sammy Barlach who's just hired on down at the dog food factory. It's Friday night. The Tequila and Meth have got Sammy flying, impressing new friends down at the bar. Wanting to fit in with the new gang, when one suggests Sammy burgle one of the town mansions, Sammy's up for it. But he hears the laughter of his new buddies and the roar of their pickup recede in the distance when they drop him off at his next crime scene.
Sammy manages to get inside and stay awake just long enough to recognize that the rich live a Helluva lot better than he does. But the problem with Meth is that although it will keep you going for days, ultimately you crash and Sammy crashes in someone else's house. Not a good thing--his rap sheet shows he's in for some long time away at the State pen if he's caught.
I fell deep down in there, until this bright light raised me from sleep. Coming out of a pit such as that, you think the bright light could be God or a cop on patrol;...then my eyes got right and it was just a candle held in front of my face by a girl in a black gown with jewelry twinkling here and there and a young fella in a tuxedo that swallowed him, smoking a heavy white pipe with a face design sculpted around the bowl.
'Are you dangerous? the girl asked. 'You look dangerous.'
..."He just might do," the fella said. "He's got that 'born to lose and lose violently' air about him. "That's good."
Meet Jamalee and Jason Merridew, brother and sister, pranksters, both of them. It isn't their house either. Jamalee and Jason learn how the other half lives by breaking into the homes of the wealthy and studying their possessions.
Jamalee wants out of West Table bad. There's a better place outside West Table, outside the Ozarks. Jason is her ticket out of town. He's already a hair dresser in training down at Ramalee's Beauty Salon. He gave her that unique tomato red hair of hers, thank you very much. He's about the most gorgeous piece of man flesh in the county. All the ladies line up for Jason to shampoo their hair and purr with a contented smile on their faces while Jason's fingers massage their scalps.
The way Jamalee sees things, all she needs to do is get Jason out of town, set him up in business, the hair dressing business and the gigoloin' business and life will be easy street. The only problem is Jason is gay and isn't too keen on being a gigolo. Jamalee knows it's not easy being gay in West Table. That's the reason Sammy might be the right man to provide security for them.
When you get right down to the bottom of things though, at least around West Table, you are who you are based on where you're from. When you're the children of Bev Merridew the local prostitute a fellow can always count on when he's pinched in the crotch, and you live over in Venus Holler, the other half doesn't think you're much of anything.
Well, Sammy has no family he'll speak of, and he decides to join the Merridews. Goodhearted Bev provides beer and sympathy when she's not on business which is just fine with Sammy.
Jamalee, furthering her education, looks to take a job down at the Country Club as a server. Sammy and Jason accompany her to the club. There's not a chance in Hell Jamalee is going to get that job. She's Venus Holler trash. In revenge, Jamalee, Jason, and Sammy drive hogs over the Club's golf course during the night, ruining every hole. It's all whoopin' and hollerin' until the other half teach the folks at Venus Holler a lesson.
One of the Merridews will die. Blood money will be paid. Those who live must decide the value of a human life. And Sammy Barlach will show you just how dangerous he can be.
This is my third Woodrell read. Each has been a unique experience with narrators distinct and different in voice. There is humor here, at first light, but turning from comedy to tragedy. While Thomas Wolfe told us you can't go home again, Daniel Woodrell let's us know that sometimes it's impossible to leave it without a price too high to pay.
Highly recommended.
May 8, 2015
Poet Laureate of the Ozarks Daniel Woodrell's sixth novel Tomato Red is a slow-burning noir about the have-nots hating the haves--and with good reason. Told in the peculiar vernacular of Sammy Barlach, the novel relates the attempts of a pair of pretty but poor siblings who want nothing more than to get out of the shithole that is their hometown, West Table, Missouri. And lucky Sammy happens to be the itinerant loser that the ketchup-haired, redneck femme fatale Jamalee Merridew - the brains of the brother & sister combo - decides will be the ideal muscle to back her and her brother's threadbare quick-money scheme to get to their fantasy-land version of opulent, aristocratic Florida. Wise he may not be but Sammy ain't no dummy, as we leisurely learn through his grimly philosophic outlook on life; he knows there is no land of milk and honey awaiting the dreamers of the lower classes. A lonely brooder who hides away a vaguely revealed past of violence and heartbreak beneath a boozy, simple-natured exterior, Sammy's main attraction for the Merridew clan is their apparent acceptance of him, as beaten by life as he may be; and in return he comes to love not only icy Jamalee, but also her pragmatic prostitute of a mother and her gorgeous and sexually confused brother. What plays out is not a violent and action-packed crime novel, but instead a sadly ironic tragicomedy about the inability to change oneself for the better.
April 25, 2011
Holy Bejesus, Tomato Red is good.
Daniel Woodrell, the guy who wrote Winter's Bone, is moving up my “favorite writer” charts. I've read two of his books and hope he's published 100 more. I'm salivating at the prospect.
Tomato Red reads like Jim Thompson in the Ozarks but with Woodrell's superhuman tag-team of spellbinding language and cutting psychological insight. The story centers on Sammy Barlach, a well-intentioned loser who meets Jam and Jason Merridew while sleeping off a bender in a house he was burgling until he fell asleep. Sammy doesn't fit anywhere, has no people, and doesn't expect much from the world. Jam is a teenage girl obsessed with escaping the sunbleached trailer park hell of West Table, Missouri. Jason is the best looking guy in the county. The town's unwritten hegemony binds the three and places them in a position where gaining momentary self-respect requires a lashing out with spectacularly tragic consequences.
Tomato Red proceeds from Sammy's internal dialogue. He figures out the best decision, when Jam invites him to hang out with the Merridews, is to head “the other way from you”, but when Jam says Sammy can “share the stink”, he sticks around because, as he puts it, “I always have just wanted to fit in somewhere, and this is the bunch that would have me.” Sammy functions as a wary, almost impassive observer, cognizant in an unspoken way of the “shit hits fan” inevitability. And he seems to watch his surroundings closely because they might the closest he might ever come to a calm, safe place. Until they're not. And when everything falls apart I felt a cleaved sense of “how the fuck did that happen?” and “how the fuck would that not happen?” Woodrell's taut, wiry novel runs a perfect 225 pages, not a wasted word among them.
A couple weeks back Anthony Bourdain featured Woodrell on the No Reservations “Ozarks” episode. Within two minutes Bourdain admits that Woodrell's presence in the Ozarks is the primary reason for the episode's existence. He wanted to meet Woodrell and manipulated the making of a television show to meet that goal. I get it, Mr. Bourdain. I'm right with you. I can't explain how Daniel Woodrell became a writer, and from where his gifts fell from the sky, but he's a manifestation of great American fiction from a blank spot on most readers' mental maps that's fortunate to claim a living storyteller of this caliber. His back catalog is calling me. Both Tomato Red and Daniel Woodrell are the real deal.
Daniel Woodrell, the guy who wrote Winter's Bone, is moving up my “favorite writer” charts. I've read two of his books and hope he's published 100 more. I'm salivating at the prospect.
Tomato Red reads like Jim Thompson in the Ozarks but with Woodrell's superhuman tag-team of spellbinding language and cutting psychological insight. The story centers on Sammy Barlach, a well-intentioned loser who meets Jam and Jason Merridew while sleeping off a bender in a house he was burgling until he fell asleep. Sammy doesn't fit anywhere, has no people, and doesn't expect much from the world. Jam is a teenage girl obsessed with escaping the sunbleached trailer park hell of West Table, Missouri. Jason is the best looking guy in the county. The town's unwritten hegemony binds the three and places them in a position where gaining momentary self-respect requires a lashing out with spectacularly tragic consequences.
Tomato Red proceeds from Sammy's internal dialogue. He figures out the best decision, when Jam invites him to hang out with the Merridews, is to head “the other way from you”, but when Jam says Sammy can “share the stink”, he sticks around because, as he puts it, “I always have just wanted to fit in somewhere, and this is the bunch that would have me.” Sammy functions as a wary, almost impassive observer, cognizant in an unspoken way of the “shit hits fan” inevitability. And he seems to watch his surroundings closely because they might the closest he might ever come to a calm, safe place. Until they're not. And when everything falls apart I felt a cleaved sense of “how the fuck did that happen?” and “how the fuck would that not happen?” Woodrell's taut, wiry novel runs a perfect 225 pages, not a wasted word among them.
A couple weeks back Anthony Bourdain featured Woodrell on the No Reservations “Ozarks” episode. Within two minutes Bourdain admits that Woodrell's presence in the Ozarks is the primary reason for the episode's existence. He wanted to meet Woodrell and manipulated the making of a television show to meet that goal. I get it, Mr. Bourdain. I'm right with you. I can't explain how Daniel Woodrell became a writer, and from where his gifts fell from the sky, but he's a manifestation of great American fiction from a blank spot on most readers' mental maps that's fortunate to claim a living storyteller of this caliber. His back catalog is calling me. Both Tomato Red and Daniel Woodrell are the real deal.
August 29, 2014
So, you were born trash, raised as trash, and everyone in town considers you trash. But you're smarter than that, you read books on etiquette, make plans to escape, use your brother's beauty as an escape route, use a loser who just needs a place to belong, distance yourself from your prostitute mother, and still nothing seems to work. Daniel Woodrell makes this a wondrous and heartbreaking journey. Jamalee is one of a kind, and you won't easily forget her.
October 24, 2012
It's been labelled Country Noir but in reality Daniel Woodrell writes mouth watering literature in a noir mileau with a touch of the Thompson/Cain existentialism.
Set in a small Ozark town, a setting familiar to you if you've already discovered the wonder that is Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red is the story of Sammy, Bev, Jam and Jay; how they come together and how they dissipate, how they live and how they dream.
Woodrell sets the scene with great effect from the off, filling your mind with descriptive passages that you could only dream about writing yourself. Interlacing the horror with the humour in this Ozark reality from the point of view of Sammy, a lonely man who has turned to crank and house breaking in an attempt to win friends and influence people, you are taken on a whirlwind journey that would not be out of place in a novel from John Steinbeck. And that is the real talent of Woodrell's early novel, disguising his important literary work in an easily accessible genre framework.
The four main characters are all interesting and very well written, their differing approach towards life captured in the (what I can only assume to be) perfect and honest manner of their speach and behaviour. These are real people whose weaknesses and faults are painted in burned out neon but you can't help but feel affection towards them, the way they accept their failings and make them work for their own benefit.
If you want an action packed plot, or even an acknowledged story arc you're probably best to stay away from this one. The narrative meanders around, letting you get to know the town and the people, watches relationships develop until you feel as though you too are a resident of Venus Holler and then it ends. These are my favourite kind of stories, ones without an obvious once upon a time beginning or the definitive closure that has come to be expected in Western fiction; this is a slice of Ozark life, it existed before you arrived and it will keep going long after you close the book for the final time.
Set in a small Ozark town, a setting familiar to you if you've already discovered the wonder that is Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red is the story of Sammy, Bev, Jam and Jay; how they come together and how they dissipate, how they live and how they dream.
Woodrell sets the scene with great effect from the off, filling your mind with descriptive passages that you could only dream about writing yourself. Interlacing the horror with the humour in this Ozark reality from the point of view of Sammy, a lonely man who has turned to crank and house breaking in an attempt to win friends and influence people, you are taken on a whirlwind journey that would not be out of place in a novel from John Steinbeck. And that is the real talent of Woodrell's early novel, disguising his important literary work in an easily accessible genre framework.
The four main characters are all interesting and very well written, their differing approach towards life captured in the (what I can only assume to be) perfect and honest manner of their speach and behaviour. These are real people whose weaknesses and faults are painted in burned out neon but you can't help but feel affection towards them, the way they accept their failings and make them work for their own benefit.
If you want an action packed plot, or even an acknowledged story arc you're probably best to stay away from this one. The narrative meanders around, letting you get to know the town and the people, watches relationships develop until you feel as though you too are a resident of Venus Holler and then it ends. These are my favourite kind of stories, ones without an obvious once upon a time beginning or the definitive closure that has come to be expected in Western fiction; this is a slice of Ozark life, it existed before you arrived and it will keep going long after you close the book for the final time.
July 17, 2016
At first, I didn't like this at all. I kept groaning at the bad grammar and inconsistent tense and I had a vision of Miss Crabtree from The Little Rascals rolling in her grave. Then, sort of like Barack Obama and his position on gay marriage, my feelings about this book slowly-then-quickly evolved. Praise Evolution!
My feelings changed when I finally realized that the poor grammar and odd tense shifts as well as the disorienting style (especially in the beginning) are intentional. Doh! After all, the story is presented by a cranked up narrator in first person POV and what more would you expect from a meth head? In that respect, Woodrell's writing is actually pretty brilliant.
Don't expect much of a story here. A murder mystery plot enters at about the halfway point, but it's not the focus of the novel and it doesn't resolve in the way murder mysteries usually do. With its angst-y mood and tone, this reminded me more of an expressionistic painting than a novel. I'm okay with that though. I just didn't expect it.
Gay readers might balk at the somewhat stereotypical portrayal of the character of Jason (a "country queer" hairdresser who can't throw a decent punch), but I didn't. He's cast in a sympathetic light and all of the other characters (rednecks, pill-poppers and whores) are also semi-stereotypes. As long as everyone is treated equally, I'm a happy camper. Did I just come out the closet here on GR? Yay for me then. Sometimes I forget that that's a never-ending process.
The deadpan humor typical of Noir had me laughing at some lines and groaning at others. These are some of the lines I especially liked:
"I … sweated like a beer bottle at a church picnic."
"Regular citizens from all the ages were all over the park. They were apparently celebrating some fun moment from history that I don’t know about."
"…staring toward the ceiling like she saw a weeping Jesus there invisible to all others."
"She kept her chin in the air and sent her body after it."
"Their talk was at that level of loud the too-drunk-to-notice favor."
"These old boys thumped their fat bellies proudly, with a kind of strange confidence, like all that fat was so much fat in the bank, fat they figured to retire on someday and live off."
I especially like that last one.
Some of Woodrell's writing is beautiful too, even when describing a less than beautiful scene. Here's just one example:
"This holler, at night or during the day, either one, had the shape of a collapsed big thing, something that had been running and running until it ran out of gas and flopped down exhausted exactly here. The houses were flung out along this deep crease in the hills and the crease surely did resemble the posture of a forlorn collapsed creature. Scrub timber and trash piles and vintage appliances spread down the slopes and all around the leaning houses to serve as a border between here and everything that wasn’t here."
By the end, I found myself truly admiring Woodrell's style and now I'm looking forward to reading his The Death of Sweet Mister with my "On The Southern Literary Trail" bookclub next month. I'm glad I got my feet wet with this one first.
3.5 stars.
The cast:
(Jamalee a/k/a Tomato Red)
(Sammy Barlach - pronounced “Bar-Lack” not “Bar-Latch”, please and thankya)
I would have included a photo of Jason and Bev too, but I couldn't find a pretty enough one for Jason and I kept hitting porn sites while looking for Bev's.
December 27, 2018
Aus diesem Roman schlägt einem die geballte Trostlosigkeit des White Trash-Milieus entgegen, und doch liest man das gerne, denn der Stil ist bildreich, hart und amüsant, erinnert bisweilen an Chandler. Die 19-jährige Jam mit den tomatenroten Haaren steht im Zentrum der Geschichte. Sie verachtet ihre Mutter, die sich prostituiert. Und versucht gleichzeitig ihren wunderschönen Bruder an reiche Frauen zu verkuppeln. Denn sie hat einen großen Traum: Sie will all das hinter sich lassen. Erzähler der Geschichte ist aber Sammy, eine Zufallsbekanntschaft der Geschwister.
Sammy beginnt eine Affäre mit der Mutter, obwohl er eigentlich in Jam vernarrt ist.
Das Ganze kann natürlich nicht gut gehen. Mit Gaunereien, Prostitution und kleinen Racheaktionen an den Reichen kann man diese Welt nicht hinter sich lassen. Auch mit nichts anderem. Das weiß der Leser viel früher als es Jam erkennen mag, und als es Sammy am Ende in Worte fasst:
Wissen Sie, die normale, wohlhabende Welt könnte sich wegen so Typen wie uns entspannen. Uns untere Schichten. Es wird niemals einen richtigen Krieg zwischen uns und den Reichen geben, weil die Reichen uns ja immer anheuern können, damit wir uns gegenseitig umbringen.
Schöne und deprimierende Geschichte!
Sammy beginnt eine Affäre mit der Mutter, obwohl er eigentlich in Jam vernarrt ist.
Das Ganze kann natürlich nicht gut gehen. Mit Gaunereien, Prostitution und kleinen Racheaktionen an den Reichen kann man diese Welt nicht hinter sich lassen. Auch mit nichts anderem. Das weiß der Leser viel früher als es Jam erkennen mag, und als es Sammy am Ende in Worte fasst:
Wissen Sie, die normale, wohlhabende Welt könnte sich wegen so Typen wie uns entspannen. Uns untere Schichten. Es wird niemals einen richtigen Krieg zwischen uns und den Reichen geben, weil die Reichen uns ja immer anheuern können, damit wir uns gegenseitig umbringen.
Schöne und deprimierende Geschichte!
September 2, 2014
"You're no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it's been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you're fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main...." Sammy Barlach, a loser ex-con who had a hard start in life, is hoping to find a place where he belongs when he moves to the rural Missouri town. He gets talked into breaking into a vacant mansion by the trailer court crowd that soon abandons him. In the mansion he meets a brother and sister who have also broken in. Jamalee Merridew, a 19-year-old with tomato red hair, has ambitions to rise out of poverty and live like the high class people who own the home. She's hoping her gorgeous 17-year-old brother Jason will be her ticket out of the poor Venus Holler section of West Table. Jason's got all the rich women lusting after him, but he does not return their feelings. Jamalee and Jason have been marked as white trash since their mother is a prostitute.
Sammy, the narrator of the story, gets taken in by the Merridews, and gets entangled in their lives. There are class conflicts between the rich and the poor, and we know who has the power and the resources. Sammy seems to have low expectations, looking at life with a bit of humor, but with a hint of violence and danger under the surface. Jamalee is very angry about how people treat her, and reads etiquette books, hoping for a better life.
Both the descriptions and the dialogue are offbeat, sometimes dark and sometimes humorous, with a Ozark country flavor. Although this is a short book, Daniel Woodrell's characters will be hard to forget.
Sammy, the narrator of the story, gets taken in by the Merridews, and gets entangled in their lives. There are class conflicts between the rich and the poor, and we know who has the power and the resources. Sammy seems to have low expectations, looking at life with a bit of humor, but with a hint of violence and danger under the surface. Jamalee is very angry about how people treat her, and reads etiquette books, hoping for a better life.
Both the descriptions and the dialogue are offbeat, sometimes dark and sometimes humorous, with a Ozark country flavor. Although this is a short book, Daniel Woodrell's characters will be hard to forget.
September 5, 2014
Unreal.
Just finished reading this aloud to my wife - we are both sitting here stunned by the book, especially the ending.
GritLit hardcore. More thoughts after I wipe the tears from my cheeks and drink a 40.
Just finished reading this aloud to my wife - we are both sitting here stunned by the book, especially the ending.
GritLit hardcore. More thoughts after I wipe the tears from my cheeks and drink a 40.
April 25, 2018
If you're of a mind to read a crime fiction novel that takes you off the beaten path (setting-wise and literary-wise), with prose that seems to sing to you with a rhythm all its own, and even features an opening sentence a mind-blowing 250 words long, you might take joy in reading TOMATO RED by Daniel Woodrell.
The story opens with Sammy, a drifter and criminal of the two-bit sort, breaking and entering a fancy house in (of all places) West Table, Mo. Sammy, who's coming down off a lost weekend of drug use and debauchery, drifts off to sleep in a chair. (No one said Sammy was the sharpest tool in the drawer.) When he awakes he's confronted by two young people -- a man named Jason who's too beautiful to exist and a woman named Jamalee with hair "a shade of red that would be natural on something growing in a garden but not on a person's head." Naturally, he nicknames this woman Tomato Red and uses clever phrases to describe the rest of her. Phrases concatenated to form sentences like, "She sported lipstick that I'd call graveyard black, and her fingernails could've been dead-baby blue."
Seems Jason and Jamalee live on the wrong side of the tracks in Venus Holler, which (as Sammy puts it) "was the most low-life part of town, so I already knew where it was. ... I felt instantly at home." It's a place from which Jamalee would like to escape, taking Jason with her. And Sammy can tag along as their protection. (The first question Jamalee asks Sammy when he wakes up is, "Are you dangerous?" She makes it sound like an interview question, rather than a concern.)
The threesome hang together, but all is not sweetness and light in their Ozarks setting. They run afoul of West Table, Mo., society's conventions. Doesn't help that Jamalee's mother, um, entertains men for a living. Entertains them at her house at all hours and in every possible manner. Despite the patina of hope that keeps the threesome moving toward their goal of leaving the Holler, a situation arises that threatens their ambitions.
Because, you know, mean streets can turn out to be gravelly roads that lead down into places like the Holler, as well as desolate coves. Places where people end up facedown dead in water unfit for swimming. And when you live on the wrong side of town, it don't matter whether that wrong side is in New York City or West Table, Mo. The justice for crimes committed against the poor is the same all over. Which is to say such justice can be illusive. When faced with such a situation, those affected try to take matters into their own hands. Needless to say, this all leads to nothing good.
Written in well-crafted prose imbued with genuine Ozarks sensibility, TOMATO RED stands out as great literature and thought-provoking noir.
The book was reissued by Busted Flush Press in Sept. 2010.
The story opens with Sammy, a drifter and criminal of the two-bit sort, breaking and entering a fancy house in (of all places) West Table, Mo. Sammy, who's coming down off a lost weekend of drug use and debauchery, drifts off to sleep in a chair. (No one said Sammy was the sharpest tool in the drawer.) When he awakes he's confronted by two young people -- a man named Jason who's too beautiful to exist and a woman named Jamalee with hair "a shade of red that would be natural on something growing in a garden but not on a person's head." Naturally, he nicknames this woman Tomato Red and uses clever phrases to describe the rest of her. Phrases concatenated to form sentences like, "She sported lipstick that I'd call graveyard black, and her fingernails could've been dead-baby blue."
Seems Jason and Jamalee live on the wrong side of the tracks in Venus Holler, which (as Sammy puts it) "was the most low-life part of town, so I already knew where it was. ... I felt instantly at home." It's a place from which Jamalee would like to escape, taking Jason with her. And Sammy can tag along as their protection. (The first question Jamalee asks Sammy when he wakes up is, "Are you dangerous?" She makes it sound like an interview question, rather than a concern.)
The threesome hang together, but all is not sweetness and light in their Ozarks setting. They run afoul of West Table, Mo., society's conventions. Doesn't help that Jamalee's mother, um, entertains men for a living. Entertains them at her house at all hours and in every possible manner. Despite the patina of hope that keeps the threesome moving toward their goal of leaving the Holler, a situation arises that threatens their ambitions.
Because, you know, mean streets can turn out to be gravelly roads that lead down into places like the Holler, as well as desolate coves. Places where people end up facedown dead in water unfit for swimming. And when you live on the wrong side of town, it don't matter whether that wrong side is in New York City or West Table, Mo. The justice for crimes committed against the poor is the same all over. Which is to say such justice can be illusive. When faced with such a situation, those affected try to take matters into their own hands. Needless to say, this all leads to nothing good.
Written in well-crafted prose imbued with genuine Ozarks sensibility, TOMATO RED stands out as great literature and thought-provoking noir.
The book was reissued by Busted Flush Press in Sept. 2010.
March 12, 2012
Delusions of grandeur, broken hopes and faded dreams populate this pocket marked landscape where a person’s status is symbolised by their street address and history accounts for their future.
‘Tomato Red’ is a tale of an unconventional grafter who finds heart by way of a homely trailer park family that encapsulate all the stigma tied to the white trailer park trash label they so gladly wear like a badge of honour. All that is, except for Jamalee, a whore’s daughter and sister to an overtly handsome young man who only wants to be treated with some kindness and be met with non-judgemental cynicism.
True noir in the same vein as Megan Abbott and greats like Thomson, Chandler and co. Woodrell’s country noir stands up against any New York back alley, LA bar, or Chicago blues – small in stature but big on entertainment value for those who seek a kind of realism that reeks of injustice and depravity. Even the lawmen are unlawful, quick to turn a blind eye for the narrowly perceived greater good of the community – the community on the right side of the tracks, that is.
‘Tomato Red’ reads like a book set in the 50’s, written in the golden age of noir, yet delivered in a modern way which showcases all the heart and soul of each dimly lit character to perfection. A fine example of what a linear plot can accomplish when executed in such a thought provoking fashion - stars.
‘Tomato Red’ is a tale of an unconventional grafter who finds heart by way of a homely trailer park family that encapsulate all the stigma tied to the white trailer park trash label they so gladly wear like a badge of honour. All that is, except for Jamalee, a whore’s daughter and sister to an overtly handsome young man who only wants to be treated with some kindness and be met with non-judgemental cynicism.
True noir in the same vein as Megan Abbott and greats like Thomson, Chandler and co. Woodrell’s country noir stands up against any New York back alley, LA bar, or Chicago blues – small in stature but big on entertainment value for those who seek a kind of realism that reeks of injustice and depravity. Even the lawmen are unlawful, quick to turn a blind eye for the narrowly perceived greater good of the community – the community on the right side of the tracks, that is.
‘Tomato Red’ reads like a book set in the 50’s, written in the golden age of noir, yet delivered in a modern way which showcases all the heart and soul of each dimly lit character to perfection. A fine example of what a linear plot can accomplish when executed in such a thought provoking fashion - stars.
March 12, 2011
The major mode of Tomato Red is impotence. Not so much the inability to change, but the inability to bring about what you want and need. There are flavors of cognitive dissonance here: of little country girls thinking they are big city, of eternal outsiders thinking they can find a place, of quiet gay men thinking there is a place for them in backwoods anywhere. Mostly, though, there is impotence. Inability. Big dreams, hopes. People better than where they were cast, at least in their mind's eye, but no real way to get another shot at redefinition.
Sammy Barlach, a loser of an ex-con, find himself adrift with Jamalee and Jason Merridew. She, the Tomato Red of the title, is small and spry, unsettled in Venus Holler (to a small Ozarks town what slums might be to a bigger one) and looking to move on. Her beautiful younger brother Jason is both her partner and her keys to escape, simultaneously a reason to leave and a tool for her to use. Jam's and Jason's mom, Bev, a backwoods bohemian, cares little about any sort of change, and mostly just wants her continuously accruing past to stay in the dark, in the dust.
It is a comical book, darkly so, at least for the first 2/3s. Then it becomes tragic in tone and stays that way. Most of the comedy is like most of the tragedy, an exercise of place and knowing your own or at least feeling it. It starts up a bit too goofy for its own good, with descriptions of wistful outlaws and redhaired waifs who break into expensive homes both, to a degree, to escape where they are. It takes a few chapters to get into a more solid mode, and by that time you might already have ideas about the book, but if you can free yourself up to see it in another light it is a rewarding read. Not as spare as it could be. Not as punchy. Not as honest. It is kind of short, but has plenty of story to keep you going. It has heart and it is willing to let you catch up, to get caught up.
As the final few pages start rolling up, and you realize the bit pinched by your right hand is much smaller than the bit in your left, you might feel a moment of panic knowing it to be over so soon, but in reality, the whole thing was always destined to end sharp. We're not meant to live with Barlach and the Merridews. We're barely even visiting.
You also have to realize, as you get into it, that you are not here to see a Hallmark Made-for-TV movie. This is not a book about people overcoming, but about people being. This is not to say that no steps are made, just that Woodrell is more than ready to abuse you of any notion that he is writing about heroes. He is writing about people, people who have life stacked against them, and it's kind of wonderful the way he does it. Just be forewarned.
Sammy Barlach, a loser of an ex-con, find himself adrift with Jamalee and Jason Merridew. She, the Tomato Red of the title, is small and spry, unsettled in Venus Holler (to a small Ozarks town what slums might be to a bigger one) and looking to move on. Her beautiful younger brother Jason is both her partner and her keys to escape, simultaneously a reason to leave and a tool for her to use. Jam's and Jason's mom, Bev, a backwoods bohemian, cares little about any sort of change, and mostly just wants her continuously accruing past to stay in the dark, in the dust.
It is a comical book, darkly so, at least for the first 2/3s. Then it becomes tragic in tone and stays that way. Most of the comedy is like most of the tragedy, an exercise of place and knowing your own or at least feeling it. It starts up a bit too goofy for its own good, with descriptions of wistful outlaws and redhaired waifs who break into expensive homes both, to a degree, to escape where they are. It takes a few chapters to get into a more solid mode, and by that time you might already have ideas about the book, but if you can free yourself up to see it in another light it is a rewarding read. Not as spare as it could be. Not as punchy. Not as honest. It is kind of short, but has plenty of story to keep you going. It has heart and it is willing to let you catch up, to get caught up.
As the final few pages start rolling up, and you realize the bit pinched by your right hand is much smaller than the bit in your left, you might feel a moment of panic knowing it to be over so soon, but in reality, the whole thing was always destined to end sharp. We're not meant to live with Barlach and the Merridews. We're barely even visiting.
You also have to realize, as you get into it, that you are not here to see a Hallmark Made-for-TV movie. This is not a book about people overcoming, but about people being. This is not to say that no steps are made, just that Woodrell is more than ready to abuse you of any notion that he is writing about heroes. He is writing about people, people who have life stacked against them, and it's kind of wonderful the way he does it. Just be forewarned.
July 15, 2011
Wow, I'm not sure how he did this, but Woodrell was able to create characters in unlikable circumstances, but still have them be likable. The cast includes Sammy,a 24 year old drifter, who's been in and out of jail. Bev, the hooker and mother of two teens, who chooses not to protect her kids from the less savory details of her life. Jamalee, 18 year old daughter, who hates her mother a little too much and loves her brother a little too much. And Jason,17 year old beautiful boy, who's willing to prostitute himself, to bankroll his and Jamalee's escape from Venus Holler, Missouri.
The story takes place in and around a trailor park in the Ozarks. The book was at times painful to read, as the characters are full of despair and self-hate and can't seem to get out of their own way. Sammy says, "You see the inside of a classier world like that and it sets your own to spinning off-balance, and a tireless gnawing discontent gets to snacking on your guts and spirit. This caliber of a place makes you want to discriminate against yourself, basically, as it reveals you as such a loser." Jamalee, dreams of a better life, reads etiquette books aloud, and quizzes Sammy and Jason about different situations. It's heartbreaking.
If this were a fairytale, one could imagine a happy ending, but it's not and in life as gritty as this, there are no happy endings. You gotta know things are just going to keep spiralling downward until it couldn't get any worse.
The story takes place in and around a trailor park in the Ozarks. The book was at times painful to read, as the characters are full of despair and self-hate and can't seem to get out of their own way. Sammy says, "You see the inside of a classier world like that and it sets your own to spinning off-balance, and a tireless gnawing discontent gets to snacking on your guts and spirit. This caliber of a place makes you want to discriminate against yourself, basically, as it reveals you as such a loser." Jamalee, dreams of a better life, reads etiquette books aloud, and quizzes Sammy and Jason about different situations. It's heartbreaking.
If this were a fairytale, one could imagine a happy ending, but it's not and in life as gritty as this, there are no happy endings. You gotta know things are just going to keep spiralling downward until it couldn't get any worse.
August 2, 2013
When will I ever learn? Woodrell pulls you in from the beginning. You fall in love with each of these lost characters and then your heart just breaks ever so slowly. You keep thinking this southern lit will be different. These lost souls will break the cycle. There's a small chance Jamalee might make it....I doubt it. Even the poor dog can't break the cycle....the park scene comes to mind. I can't wait to read more of Woodrell's newer stuff.
October 4, 2012
Tomato Red doesn't stand for what you probably think it stands for...if you've even thought about it at all. I won't spoil it for you, so you don't have to worry. It wasn't at all what I thought it might be. The only thing I will tell you, it's not about tomatoes...
It was both discovered and recommended to me, and I have to say, I'm really glad. I discovered Daniel Woodrell because of his amazing book Winter's Bone", but also someone told me to pick up Tomato Red. For anyone who is wondering, Tomato Red and Winter's Bone are similar, but they are also very different.
Tomato Red is from a male's perspective. Again, we are put into the poor Missouri life, where people whore themselves for money and live in shacks. People drink and smoke all of the time, and they speak, (and I can say this because I'm a Texan), "country." Some do drugs, and some are suffering because of the situation their parents put them into.
To be quite honest, Sammy is the type of guy you want to hate. He's a loser. Sometimes he lives out of his car, does bad things, sometimes awful things. But, you almost kind of like him. Or at least I did. I wanted certain things to turn out better than they did in the book, but it wasn't like I was too disappointed because you can't always get what you want. Sammy is the type of guy you feel bad for, but then when you look at things he does, you stop feeling sorry for him and say it's what he deserves.
Woodrell, the author, has really impressed me with his writing in both of the books I have read by him. I can always picture what's going on, the characters, their actions, and I always have a feeling, whether positive or negative, towards the main character. He really does have a way with words, and the way he writes "country, Southern" is very well done. It's believable, its readable, and it makes me feel as though I'm hearing his characters in my head or watching them in front of me.
So why the four stars? I know I don't have to justify my rating, but to me this story wasn't as good as Winter's Bone. There is a specific instance in both where I felt they were way too similar , but different circumstances. However, the stories are drastically different. It's an easy read, enjoyable, and one I'd recommend to people who did like Winter's Bone or if you like characters you hate to love, or love to hate, or if you just like Woodrell's style. I also just don't feel it was as strong of a story as Winter's Bone. So for those things, it's a solid four star book.
"Taggin' that name on you, that was like casting a curse on you. Oh, baby, your ma made a sorry, shitty prediction on your whole life and hung a name on you that would help the sorry, shitty stuff come true."
"You ain't bringin' me any news."
Sorry...I couldn't resist. That quote me laugh so hard when I read it. :)
It was both discovered and recommended to me, and I have to say, I'm really glad. I discovered Daniel Woodrell because of his amazing book Winter's Bone", but also someone told me to pick up Tomato Red. For anyone who is wondering, Tomato Red and Winter's Bone are similar, but they are also very different.
Tomato Red is from a male's perspective. Again, we are put into the poor Missouri life, where people whore themselves for money and live in shacks. People drink and smoke all of the time, and they speak, (and I can say this because I'm a Texan), "country." Some do drugs, and some are suffering because of the situation their parents put them into.
To be quite honest, Sammy is the type of guy you want to hate. He's a loser. Sometimes he lives out of his car, does bad things, sometimes awful things. But, you almost kind of like him. Or at least I did. I wanted certain things to turn out better than they did in the book, but it wasn't like I was too disappointed because you can't always get what you want. Sammy is the type of guy you feel bad for, but then when you look at things he does, you stop feeling sorry for him and say it's what he deserves.
Woodrell, the author, has really impressed me with his writing in both of the books I have read by him. I can always picture what's going on, the characters, their actions, and I always have a feeling, whether positive or negative, towards the main character. He really does have a way with words, and the way he writes "country, Southern" is very well done. It's believable, its readable, and it makes me feel as though I'm hearing his characters in my head or watching them in front of me.
So why the four stars? I know I don't have to justify my rating, but to me this story wasn't as good as Winter's Bone. There is a specific instance in both where I felt they were way too similar , but different circumstances. However, the stories are drastically different. It's an easy read, enjoyable, and one I'd recommend to people who did like Winter's Bone or if you like characters you hate to love, or love to hate, or if you just like Woodrell's style. I also just don't feel it was as strong of a story as Winter's Bone. So for those things, it's a solid four star book.
"Taggin' that name on you, that was like casting a curse on you. Oh, baby, your ma made a sorry, shitty prediction on your whole life and hung a name on you that would help the sorry, shitty stuff come true."
"You ain't bringin' me any news."
Sorry...I couldn't resist. That quote me laugh so hard when I read it. :)
September 15, 2014
I already feel bad writing this review. This is a book I should "like" based on the general genre, my admiration of the author, and the impact it had on other readers I greatly respect. Having previously returned it twice to the library after not being able to get it started within my allotted time, I was tickled it was selected as a monthly group read within the group "On the Southern Literary Trail"- surely the cue that it was meant to be for me to finally get it under my belt.
Perfect setup.......for a book that I just couldn't quite like. I can't put my finger on it completely; just an "OK" story line which lacked the character buy-in I have discovered in other readings from his brain. In the same way the 90's show "90210" cheapened the probably somewhat truth of those kinds of kids, this one broached the issue of stereotypical low-bred Ozark foothill youth's coming of age. Almost a little "soap opera" in flavor for me. This author has skills, but for this reader I found them better displayed in more fleshed out plots of later works (The Death of Sweet Mister is equally "nasty and scummy" but for me had deeper tie in than this one).
Woodrell's talent is clearly in there- squarely nailing the "voice" of these characters. He can write from a perspective that has you convinced he's "one of them". How else could you understand the intricate parts of these characters if you didn't spend your time drinkin 'splo wiskey by the gallon, hanging tight with prison tatted up crank heads, and going on week long drunken fishing trips that somehow devolve into either sexually or criminally minded escapes? Yet, to meet this author in person, is like spending time with quite the opposite. A gentle minded, introspective, soft spoken, well read pacifist. My fandom is in no way in jeopardy for this guy even though I got a less than perfect read out of this one.
Perfect setup.......for a book that I just couldn't quite like. I can't put my finger on it completely; just an "OK" story line which lacked the character buy-in I have discovered in other readings from his brain. In the same way the 90's show "90210" cheapened the probably somewhat truth of those kinds of kids, this one broached the issue of stereotypical low-bred Ozark foothill youth's coming of age. Almost a little "soap opera" in flavor for me. This author has skills, but for this reader I found them better displayed in more fleshed out plots of later works (The Death of Sweet Mister is equally "nasty and scummy" but for me had deeper tie in than this one).
Woodrell's talent is clearly in there- squarely nailing the "voice" of these characters. He can write from a perspective that has you convinced he's "one of them". How else could you understand the intricate parts of these characters if you didn't spend your time drinkin 'splo wiskey by the gallon, hanging tight with prison tatted up crank heads, and going on week long drunken fishing trips that somehow devolve into either sexually or criminally minded escapes? Yet, to meet this author in person, is like spending time with quite the opposite. A gentle minded, introspective, soft spoken, well read pacifist. My fandom is in no way in jeopardy for this guy even though I got a less than perfect read out of this one.
June 7, 2016
I was excited to read a book written by someone from Missouri. I lived in Missouri for... an annoyingly long time, and I hated the majority of that time. But I'm sure some good stuff came out of the state - if one of those things can be a good author, that's great. So I keep my eyes peeled.
I heard a lot about Winter's Bone, and something about a movie based on it. A friend asked for the book last Christmas and I had no idea what she was talking about at that time because I sometimes live under a rock. Then it turns out my brother had a copy of this book, Tomato Red, which he let me borrow. And I'm now, like a year later, finally reading it. Yay me!
It's an okay story, with okay characters, but quite honestly they're characters I feel like I already sort of know. Certainly that's the point, and every good writer should be able to write characters that the reader can relate to. But this was sort of frustrating for me to read, because I'm pretty sure I could pinpoint each character based on people I knew when I lived in Missouri. Yeah. I left Missouri for a reason.
Still, it's a quick read, I liked the "noir" concept based in the Ozarks. I'll read more of this Woodrell guy because I think he has some skills. But I'll probably need to take some time between his books; the setting still hits too close to home sometimes.
I heard a lot about Winter's Bone, and something about a movie based on it. A friend asked for the book last Christmas and I had no idea what she was talking about at that time because I sometimes live under a rock. Then it turns out my brother had a copy of this book, Tomato Red, which he let me borrow. And I'm now, like a year later, finally reading it. Yay me!
It's an okay story, with okay characters, but quite honestly they're characters I feel like I already sort of know. Certainly that's the point, and every good writer should be able to write characters that the reader can relate to. But this was sort of frustrating for me to read, because I'm pretty sure I could pinpoint each character based on people I knew when I lived in Missouri. Yeah. I left Missouri for a reason.
Still, it's a quick read, I liked the "noir" concept based in the Ozarks. I'll read more of this Woodrell guy because I think he has some skills. But I'll probably need to take some time between his books; the setting still hits too close to home sometimes.
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June 7, 2012
Another great book from Mr. Woodrell, This guy is an excellent writer. In this particular book we meet Sammy; our POV character and a down and out redneck criminal; Jamalee, a white trash girl who wants to make a better life for herself and her brother; Jason, the aforementioned brother who is devastatingly beautiful and confusedly gay; and Bev, the mother of Jam and Jason, and who pays her bills through prostitution. All characters are full and well fleshed out. The dialog is excellent and the voice is just short of brilliant. There isn't much story here but the book doesn't suffer much for its lack.
The main theme of the book seems to be the futility of trying to rise above one's station in life. That in America, people who are born poor and without means generally die poor and without means. While there are the occasional success stories, for the most part, they are mere drops from the vast ocean of futility and despair that greet the infant newly born to the "wrong" sort of people.
With our Oligarchs currently chopping up the desiccated corpse of what used to be organized labor in the United States and draining the few remaining assets from the middle class, I don't expect things to be looking up anytime soon.
The main theme of the book seems to be the futility of trying to rise above one's station in life. That in America, people who are born poor and without means generally die poor and without means. While there are the occasional success stories, for the most part, they are mere drops from the vast ocean of futility and despair that greet the infant newly born to the "wrong" sort of people.
With our Oligarchs currently chopping up the desiccated corpse of what used to be organized labor in the United States and draining the few remaining assets from the middle class, I don't expect things to be looking up anytime soon.
December 6, 2014
2.5 stars
Aaaah...so what to say about this book.
Well, it's probably good for what it is, a Kurt Vonnegut meets Erskine Caldwell with maybe a tincy-wincy echo of Raymond Chandler. The writing is competent, and there's a point. It's just not a style of writing that appeals to me...in fact, I find it a little annoying, but understand it's a personal preference kind of thing more than a reflection of the writer's talent.
I debated between two and three stars, but ultimately decided on two because after reading his book Winter's Bone, I went in with high expectations and now feel cheated.
I'm not sure whom to recommend this to, so will simply say that if you like writing that's kind of off-beat and loaded with tongue-in-cheek characters, then you might enjoy this. It's short and well-written, and probably why I kept reading, otherwise I think this is one that I might have abandoned by page 100.
I'll add that many of my goodreads friends liked it, friends with whom I share reading interests. So who knows. This one just did nothing for me. Put it this way, had I read this first I would never have sought out other works by this author, as opposed to Winter's Bone that I enjoyed enough to order this book.
Aaaah...so what to say about this book.
Well, it's probably good for what it is, a Kurt Vonnegut meets Erskine Caldwell with maybe a tincy-wincy echo of Raymond Chandler. The writing is competent, and there's a point. It's just not a style of writing that appeals to me...in fact, I find it a little annoying, but understand it's a personal preference kind of thing more than a reflection of the writer's talent.
I debated between two and three stars, but ultimately decided on two because after reading his book Winter's Bone, I went in with high expectations and now feel cheated.
I'm not sure whom to recommend this to, so will simply say that if you like writing that's kind of off-beat and loaded with tongue-in-cheek characters, then you might enjoy this. It's short and well-written, and probably why I kept reading, otherwise I think this is one that I might have abandoned by page 100.
I'll add that many of my goodreads friends liked it, friends with whom I share reading interests. So who knows. This one just did nothing for me. Put it this way, had I read this first I would never have sought out other works by this author, as opposed to Winter's Bone that I enjoyed enough to order this book.
July 14, 2014
This is my second book by Woodrell and he has rapidly climbed my list of favorites. It's the one-liners, the never-too-anxious pacing, the tone, the perfect-pitch, and as if that's not enough, he laces it with humor. I am now a Fan.-- The story has many threads; class distinction between haves and have-nots, unrequited love, and achieving a sense of "belonging".-- There are loads of quotes in this little gem, I'll mention a few and it's just the tip of the iceberg. From the foreword, and a good summation of the book: "The noir trap is set...by a world that never gives these couples a chance - that only seeks to throw them away. These beautiful losers are disposable". And as a description of Sammy Barlach, the male lead: "His daddy was a pit bull and his momma was a train wreck." What's not available: "The good world, regular happy life; I never had no hand in that, so it's interesting for me to watch it. They seem so sure of their road and what they will pass by along the way and what they'll find at the end". Sorry Sammy- not for you. My Opinion-OR NOT
January 17, 2011
Sammy begins his tale by telling you how he met Jamalee and Jason after crashing from a meth jag in a mansion he'd broken into the day before. Jamalee is the girl with "tomato red" hair who yearns for a place where no one knows her. Sammy accepts that their station in life is cast and believes that joy exists in the moments of a good gut-bucket blues or rockabilly song, a cool haircut, cold rootbeer and a willing woman. It's the voice which lifts this book above the mundane world of losers and outcasts.
September 14, 2020
If my house were on fire, I'd stop to grab this book. I love this book so much I'd marry it. Sammy Barlach is one of the most charming and cursed unreliable narrators of all time. Woodrell has written a quintessential American tragedy that those of us who grew up not knowing if there'd be dinner tonight can relate to on a visceral level. You know going in that things aren't going to end well for Sammy but just how exactly they do end is both inevitable and surprising.
December 30, 2016
I feel about Tomato Red the same way I felt about Woodrell's most famous novel, Winter's Bone: yes, I can see plainly that it's overwritten a la Cormac McCarthy, but I just love the sum of its parts so much that it matters not at all. He is masterful in depicting the sometimes tragic trajectories of rural poverty.
December 1, 2012
I grew up around a whole heap of hillbilly boys straight out of the Tennessee hills. Grandmama picked cotton near her whole life. Grandpa died with fingers so gnarled from arthritis after pushing a plow for 50 years that he had to have his youngest boy hold roll and hold his cigarettes for him. My dad, well, he wasn't the hard-working type an let out for Las Vegas at age 17 and bounced from city to city his whole life. Always wound right back there in Ripley, TN though. Needed to be around his people.
That's actually exactly how I know that Woodrell is as authentic as f&$@. Not for any of the language Megan Abbott laid out in the foreword, or any of the beautiful, plain-speech prose. Just one word authenticates the entire thing. The fact that Woodrell doesn't say family or friends. Doesn't ask "are those your friends?" Or "where's your family?" Nope. He uses the word 'people'. "Where're your people from?" Who's your people?" Hillbilly credibility right there.
I just reviewed 'Give Us a Kiss' a few days ago and thought it was just so damned awful after having heard so much high praise for Woodrell. So, since its bot like I don't own 859 other books that need to be read, I started Tomato Red immediately after putting down GUaK. Best decision I could have made, by far. This is what I was expecting from the man who is supposed to be the precursor of Bill Frank and Donald Ray Pollock. A damned beautiful, savage and fatalistic masterpiece of backwoods crime drama.
It's hardboiled as hell. We can trace Woodrell back to Jim Thompson if we want to see where his literary people came from. It's mean and there just ain't no way around any of the meanness. The essence of hardboiled pulp is the fatalism. This has it in spades. There isn't much to say about it except that it demands to be read. It's a classic of American literature, a southern gothic that tells the story of a part of this country that Jonathan Franzen and Jeffrey Eugenides sure as hell ain't gonna write about. Pick it up. Fly through it. Ain't that long. Goes by real fast. But it'll stick with you for a long damn time.
Grade: A
That's actually exactly how I know that Woodrell is as authentic as f&$@. Not for any of the language Megan Abbott laid out in the foreword, or any of the beautiful, plain-speech prose. Just one word authenticates the entire thing. The fact that Woodrell doesn't say family or friends. Doesn't ask "are those your friends?" Or "where's your family?" Nope. He uses the word 'people'. "Where're your people from?" Who's your people?" Hillbilly credibility right there.
I just reviewed 'Give Us a Kiss' a few days ago and thought it was just so damned awful after having heard so much high praise for Woodrell. So, since its bot like I don't own 859 other books that need to be read, I started Tomato Red immediately after putting down GUaK. Best decision I could have made, by far. This is what I was expecting from the man who is supposed to be the precursor of Bill Frank and Donald Ray Pollock. A damned beautiful, savage and fatalistic masterpiece of backwoods crime drama.
It's hardboiled as hell. We can trace Woodrell back to Jim Thompson if we want to see where his literary people came from. It's mean and there just ain't no way around any of the meanness. The essence of hardboiled pulp is the fatalism. This has it in spades. There isn't much to say about it except that it demands to be read. It's a classic of American literature, a southern gothic that tells the story of a part of this country that Jonathan Franzen and Jeffrey Eugenides sure as hell ain't gonna write about. Pick it up. Fly through it. Ain't that long. Goes by real fast. But it'll stick with you for a long damn time.
Grade: A
October 15, 2014
I read this 2 years ago and I was surprised to find I didn't review it here.
This book started so well. I was so intrigued. A house robber knocked out, waking up to two creepy teenagers with a plan. . . .I thought I knew where this was going.
Well, I didn't.
It basically didn't really go anywhere. . .well, not anywhere good.
I read through to the end and it was sad. So sad.
Loved the title, though. That's what intrigued me.
This book started so well. I was so intrigued. A house robber knocked out, waking up to two creepy teenagers with a plan. . . .I thought I knew where this was going.
Well, I didn't.
It basically didn't really go anywhere. . .well, not anywhere good.
I read through to the end and it was sad. So sad.
Loved the title, though. That's what intrigued me.
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